Tag Archives: greenpoint

Before I head out of town for a week of writing, granola crunching and walks in a tick-infested woods, I thought I’d leave all my fellow single NYers with a word of advice via this pitch perfect video. Believe me, after a year of working and hanging out in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, I can confirm every word of this song is true.

Despite the peripheral crazies on my job, my immediate co-workers are amazing. Back on one cold December morning, one of them took a picture of the sunrise from our office building rooftop. It was a reminder that we were close to shooting and at the “dawn” of our new project. Seven months later, during an overnight shoot on a warm summer morning, he went up on our rooftop again to take a picture of the sunrise over Brooklyn. He called it our “light at the end of the tunnel.” Another co-worker remarked that for it to truly come full-circle, we should really take a picture of the setting sun, a full daylight cycle, marking the end of a very wild ride.

Sunset over Brooklyn

It’s the little things like this that mean the most. We never let a day go by without laughing so hard we were crying, office QOTD’s are written down so we’ll never forget. These are my war buddies and this is what I love about my job, each show is so unique, the dynamics, the energy, the talents, the highs and the lows. Working on a movie is also called a “rodeo.” And, the name is very apropos. Each movie is like an untamed stallion, you start out with a beast, but by sunset, you can anticipate nearly every buck and kick of your trained equine. You’ve mastered it, and now it’s time to let the horse go out into the world, while you saddle up in time for the next sunrise.

New York has always been known as a melting pot, but sometimes it feels more like a clash of cultures: China takes over Italy (only two real streets of Little Italy remain), Korea sits on the west side of town while India holds it’s own on a few blocks of the east side. And the hipsters have turned most of Greenpoint, Brooklyn into their own personal campus, leaving the Polish to venture farther down the line to parts that have yet to be gentrified and hipsterized. Think this doesn’t exist? Well, let me introduce you to Poland via the G train (Nassau Street stop, to Norman Avenue). This interesting stretch of neighborhood has become my daytime (and sometimes nighttime) home away from home due to my new office location. Coming up out of the subway you’d swear you’re in Eastern Europe. The sights, the smells, the signs. EVERYTHING is written in Polish first, English second. The letter “Y” replaces “I” in most of the words, take for instance the “SYrena Bakery.” And, the name for Laundromat? Well, I’ll just let some of my photos do the talking.

It’s interesting to work in the middle of a cultural enclave that is still so untouched, but I know it won’t be for long. Each week it seems one more 20-something in skinny jeans, wearing American Apparel tee shirts and a pair of converse are added into the mix. But, by far the most ironic thing about life in “Little Polska” happened when I called to complain about my vegetarian borscht simply being beet juice with the meat physically removed from the soup, the man answering the phone said in a thick Polish accent with a biting tone, ” we’re not promising you ‘designer’ borscht, it tastes like it tastes. What do you think this is, the Upper West Side?”